Dutch Wagenbach
Holland "Dutch" Wagenbach is a Los Angeles Police Department detective working at the the Barn in Farmington. Before Season 1 Dutch Wagenbach first worked as a detective at the Sunset precinct. There, he was married to a woman named Lucy. She was an alcoholic, so Dutch involved her in Alcoholics Anonymous. The story related to the Strike Team by Tom Gannon was that she cheated on Dutch with her sponsor and even became pregnant by the man. She and Dutch divorced. Dutch was transferred to the Barn and was one of the original detectives there when it started operating. On his first day, he arrived late thinking that he would start working at 9 a.m., like detectives had at Sunset. But Capt. David Aceveda told him that in the Barn he would start at 7 a.m. Aceveda then teamed him with Detectives Tom Gannon and Claudette Wyms in the kidnapping and rape of Anabel. .]] When Dutch met Gannon, he recognized him for being the one that solved the "Beachwood Canyon Slasher" case. When he was introduced to Claudette, he mentioned how he hadn't heard of her because he liked to keep himself informed of his colleagues' work. As he asked Gannon details of the case, he suggested that maybe they could work as partners so he could learn from Gannon. However, as he worked the case with Wyms, whom he had never heard of, he ended up asking her to work as partners. Season 1 .]] Dutch and his partner, Claudette Wyms, arrived at the scene of the murder of Nancy Reborg. As they examined the scene, Dutch commented on how nice Nancy's breasts were. Officer Danny Sofer came to inform them that Nancy's sister, Janet, was outside and Dutch went out to talk to her. As he informed her of Nancy's death, she collapsed to her knees in front of him, crying while nearby cops laughed at the scene. When Janet asked about Nancy's daughter, Jenny, they went back inside so she could identify the girl. As they went back to the Barn, Dutch commented Claudette that he was thinking of asking Danny out on a date. Claudette recommended him not to date someone at work, but he told her he was confident. However, when he approaches Danny, Vic Mackey and Shane Vendrell start making fun of him. When Mackey brings Nancy's husband, who is a suspect of her murder, Dutch and Claudette start interrogating him. Although Lonnie was still sobering from his crack addiction, they press on him and he confesses to the murder and selling his daughter to a pedophile called George Sawyer. Dutch quickly gets an arrest warrant and when they arrive at Sawyer's house, they find him feeding his ill mother. As they bring Sawyer back to the Barn and start questioning him, Dutch walks out to get something to eat. He then realizes someone stole the Ding-Dongs from his desk. He quickly accuses Mackey of stealing them, but Mackey simply mocks his infantile attitude. When Dutch returns with Sawyer, he tries to manipulate him into revealing Jenny's whereabouts by making small talk with him. Dutch tries to tease him into confessing and eventually he confesses having sold the girl to a doctor he met through the Internet. allows Vic Mackey to torture a suspect.]] After they bring him to the Barn, Dutch and Claudette start questioning him. However, he closes himself and refuses to talk. Captain David Aceveda pulls them out and brings Mackey who tortures Grady into confessing the location of Jenny. This angers Dutch and Claudette, but they quickly leave with Aceveda to find the girl. They find her hidden underneath a secret basement at Grady's house. That night, Dutch again approaches Danny to ask her out, but she rejects him because her friend arranged her a blind date. As they talk, he realizes that someone put dog excrement on his desk. As everybody laughs, he is left cleaning it during the night. That night, when Detective Terry Crowley was murdered during a raid at a drug dealer's house, Aceveda put Dutch and Claudette on the case. However, in the morning, Assistant Chief Ben Gilroy put Internal Affairs on the case and pulled them out. After talking with Danny about his thoughts on the raid, he noticed her talking with Vic suspecting there's something between them. Dutch and Claudette later arrived at the scene where a street vendor was shot and injured. They then talked with the vendor's son who told them that his father owed money to a Marlon Demeral. When Danny and Julien brings Marlon, he and Claudette prepare to interrogate him. However, Aceveda asks Dutch to help him with an investigation on Mackey and the Strike Team regarding the death of Terry Crowley. Aceveda then brings Mackey up to interrogate him. After some brief questions, he dismisses him assuring Dutch that they'll go after a "weaker" one like Shane Vendrell. .]] Aceveda and Dutch later interrogate Shane. As they press on him, Dutch notices how Shane squints every time he lies. Aceveda keeps on pressing him knowing that they murdered Crowley. As Shane was about to break, Vic arrives and tells Shane and Dutch to leave. Dutch then tells Claudette about what happened but she doesn't wanna know about it. Later that night, Dutch stops Aceveda and tells him not to bring him again into an interrogation room if he's not willing to give him all the details. Aceveda assures him that was his tactic. Dutch simply asks him if he really believes Mackey had something to do with Crowley's murder. Sometime later, Connie Riesler arrived at the Barn after being attacked and almost raped by a man. Vic asked Dutch to help her find the attacker and, after looking at some mugshots, she identified a man called William Greeley. As Dutch read his file, he checked other recent killings and thought he had found a pattern. Although Claudette thought he was stretching, he went to Aceveda with his theory. Aceveda, howeveer, told him to try to make him confess the attack on Connie and then work from that. Dutch and Claudette went to his house and found him naked with his penis inside a jar. As they arrested him, Dutch found a locked fridge. As he opened it, he found lots of jars filled with semen. As they interrogated Greeley, Dutch tried to make him confess the other murders. Claudette didn't agree with him so he took him out of the room to continue the interrogation herself. However, Dutch assured Claudette that he was responsible for other murders and that he wanted to confess. When Greeley asked another moment alone with Claudette, Dutch refused to but Claudette asked him to leave them. He watched from the surveillance camera how Claudette flirted with him to get the confession, but when Greeley tried to attack Claudette, he ran to the room only to find out she had kicked him in the groin. As he got out, Danny told him that Aceveda recommended her to take the sergeant's exam, and Dutch offered to look up his old notes so she could use them. Another night, when a shooting ensued at Chez Club that resulted in two casualties, Dutch went there with Detective Pete Shockley. As they started to work the case, Aceveda decided to leave Shockley at it, while putting Dutch and Claudette in another case. He asked them to help a woman, Ellie Ruiz, find her missing husband. This pissed Dutch because he knew Aceveda had asked them to do it because Ellie was the nanny of an influential developer called Jorge Machado. Still, Dutch and Claudette started asking immigrants around home improvement centers, where Ellie's husband was last seen. Someone confessed them that they had seen Manuel and his best friend, Eduardo Salcido, leave with a man called Jamison. When Dutch and Claudette asked Jamison about Manuel, he told them he didn't remember him. They eventually found Eduardo and, although he escaped the first time, they finally captured him. During questioning, they thought that Manuel and Eduardo had a fight which had caused Eduardo to kill him. However, Eduardo confessed that Manuel had died when he fell from a roof while carrying an air conditioning unit. Dutch assured him that wasn't a crime, but Eduardo told them that Jamison had convinced him it was. He also told them they had buried Manuel in Jamison's grounds because he didn't want to have his work halted. Dutch and Claudette went there and started digging up Manuel's body. When Jamison saw them, they arrested him. When Vic Mackey and the Strike Team arrested Margos Dezerian and some of his associates of the Armenian Mafia, Dutch interrogated Dezerian, but he refused to talk. When Officer Danny Sofer told Dutch that Dezerian had told her something in Armenian while in the cage, Dutch wrote it down. He and Claudette also gave Aceveda a briefing of what they had found at Dezerian's house. Later, as he saw Danny, he asked her if she had time to look at his notes for the sergeant's exam and again reminded her he was available to study anytime she wanted. He also told her the translation of what Margos had told her, which was "delicious feet". Later that night, he met at Danny's house to help her study for the sergeant's exam. While they were studying, Danny received a call from Vic. She told Dutch that a friend was having some problems and "she" wanted to come by, so Dutch left. However, he waited by his car and saw Vic arriving and kissing Danny. Some time later, when 13-year-old Sally Struthers was found dead, Dutch asked Aceveda for all the resources of the Barn to find the killer. Aceveda agreed and Dutch started leading an investigation putting everybody on the Barn to help with something. However, Vic and the Strike Team left, not wanting to take orders from Dutch, to find the killer by their own means. Dutch later told Claudette that he wanted to prove to everyone that he was a good detective, since he felt people didn't take him seriously. To help with the case, Dutch called FBI agent Jim Wright. When he arrived, Dutch greeted him and gave him the details of the case. When Officers Danny Sofer and Ray Carlson, both came with different witnesses, Dutch interrogated Hector. Hector, a gas station clerk, told him he had seen the suspect green car but he wasn't able to see the driver's face. He told Dutch that he had brought $3 of change that belonged to the guy, but since the suspect hadn't touched them, they were useless. As the night went on, Aceveda started taking men out of Dutch's case, which angered him. Jim Wright made a preliminary profile of the killer and gave it to Dutch. At this moment, Claudette came in with another witness that claimed having seen the suspect green car. Dutch and Claudette interrogated Tom Ross, who told them that he had seen the car at a stop sign, and had seen the driver struggling with a female. Tom gave them the license plate, and Dutch gave it to Officer Yun Dae so she could look for the owner. When Vic came back from the raid on the sex club, Dutch blasted him for not helping with his case, but Vic simply ignored him. When the driver of the suspect green car was brought, Dutch started interrogated him. At one point, Vic called him to see one of the "Cherry Popper" films they found at the raid, which featured Sally Struthers. Mrs. Park, the owner of the sex club, confessed that Kurt Schmidt had brought her the girl. As he got out, Dutch was visibly distraught by what he had seen at the video. Vic assured him that he would get the guy that made the girl do that. When a kid that said he was Sally's boyfriend came to the Barn, Dutch and Claudette questioned him. He told them he was unaware of Sally's life and that they had been together until 10:00 the night she was murdered. With that information, Dutch continued to interrogate Hanratty. However, Hanratty realized that this was all a prank that his friend Tom had pulled on him. Angered by all the time wasted, Dutch had Tom brought back to the Barn and attacked him for doing such a prank on the murder of a girl. He then put Tom on the cage for obstruction of justice. As he and Claudette met with Aceveda to brief him on what they had, Aceveda decided to pull the resources from Dutch because of a riot on a school. This angered Dutch, who argued to him that Sally deserved better. As he got down, Danny asked Dutch if they could study for her sergeant's exam. However, Dutch blasted at her for worrying about herself and not about Sally. Danny simply left as Dutch realized he had taken things too far. Vic later commended him on his job, despite the fact that they hadn't found the killer. After going out, Dutch stopped at Danny's house and apologized for his behavior. She accepted his apology and invited him for a sandwich. Personality Dutch Wagenbach is characterized by many as a socially inept nerd, even though he is a successful police detective. Assigned to the Farmington district of Los Angeles, Dutch is often the first called to investigate violent crimes due to his specialization in offender profiling and serial killers. Along with his partner, Detective Claudette Wyms, Dutch is widely considered to be the moral center of the show due to his willingness to do the right thing, in spite of the temptation to engage in illegal police activities. A divorced, middle-aged police detective who was born in the Midwest, Dutch became a police officer mainly as a means to gain the love and approval of his emotionally distant father. He is also sexually frustrated, despite his claim that he has been laid, "more than a few times." Because of his unhappy childhood and his treatment as a pariah amongst his fellow detectives, Dutch carries around a great deal of bottled up anger that borders on outright rage. Occasionally, when he has been put through a great deal of stress or frustration, Dutch's containment of these emotions is unleashed, sometimes in very public outbursts. In the first season, Dutch thoroughly interrogated and psychoanalyzed a man named Sean Taylor he suspected to be a serial killer. The man then did the same to Dutch with great effectiveness, dwelling on Dutch's lonely and awkward nature. Most of the precinct had no opinion of the man and believed Dutch was wasting his time, and some even found amusement in the man's verbal abuse of Dutch. Eventually, however, and to the astonishment of the precinct, Dutch exposed the man's guilt and even got him to confess. This gained a completely unexpected applause and accolade from the other officers, including Vic. However, in a private moment later that same night, Dutch broke down and cried due to the truth of his attacker's words. Dutch's dark side became most notable during season three in a controversial sequence where Dutch killed a stray cat, partly because its caterwauling was constantly keeping him awake, but also to see how it felt to kill another living thing. This act was influenced by Dutch's interrogations of the "cuddler rapist," a serial offender who sexually assaulted senior citizens and eventually graduated to murder. Season 4 saw another appearance of Dutch's dark side, when he was interrogating another serial killer, in which he described to the suspect, in great detail, what he believed the killer must have felt during the murder. Watching from a video feed in a separate room, Claudette seemed discomforted by Dutch's emotionally-charged words. In the Season 5 premiere Extraction, Dutch nearly strangles to death a man who tried to push Detective Wyms over the second story railing of The Barn, and has to be physically separated from the attacker by Mackey. Trivia * Dutch appears to be a big fan of 80's music. On a blind date (set up by Claudette), The Strike Team catches him singing "Hungry Like The Wolf" by Duran Duran. In Season 6, when taking Tina Hanlon back to his house for dinner, "I Ran (So Far Away)" by A Flock of Seagulls is playing in the background. Relationships Dutch is not especially popular around his precinct. Many of his fellow officers consider Dutch to be over-educated and egotistical at best and a "rube" at worst because his ex-wife carried on an adulterous affair behind Dutch's back that resulted in her becoming pregnant with her lover's child. Relationship with Detective Billings Dutch also has an intense dislike for fellow Detective Steve Billings and the two have come to blows at least once. Billings often humiliates Dutch, but will often turn to him to cover up a mistake or illegal activities (such as purchasing vending machines for the Barn to use inside the precinct in order to turn a profit, which was expressly against department rules). Recently, the two were partnered up by new Captain, Claudette Wyms because of the fact neither of them were currently assigned a partner, much to Dutch's displeasure. Further complicating things was Claudette openly siding with Billings when Dutch objected to the pairing. Recently, the two men worked together to investigate a rape, and Dutch and Billings seemed to work well together. Billings, however, was sick of Dutch's needling about his various illegal actions. He secretly arranged for a sexual encounter between Officer Tina Hanlon, Dutch's secret crush, and new Strike Team leader Kevin Hiatt. He then stole Tina's cell phone and text messaged Dutch, who arrived just in time to see them through the window making love. However, before Dutch could confront him, Billings left the Barn to pursue a personal injury lawsuit against the Department. Relationship with Corrine Mackey Dutch also dated Corrine Mackey, ex-wife of Vic, for a period of time during the fourth season. The two dated behind Vic's back and, and despite the innocent nature of their relationship, Vic accused Dutch of dating his ex-wife just to spite him. When Corrine confronted Dutch about this accusation, Dutch commented that spiting Vic played a small part in his pursuing her but he saw that she was doing the same thing as well. The two have since stopped dating, but have remained close friends, much to Vic's dismay. When Corrine found herself becoming a target of Lt. John Kavanaugh's IAD investigation of the Strike Team, Corrine turned to Dutch for advice. Dutch told her to just tell the truth, a move that led to Corrine revealing to Kavanaugh that Vic gave her $65,000 several months prior to take care of their children's special needs. Dutch also suggested to Corrine that she do whatever possible to curry favor with Kavanaugh, in the belief that her cooperation would lead to Kavanaugh not to follow through with his threats to indict Corrine as an accomplice to her husband's crimes. This move, however, backfired and only further angered Kavanaugh, who made it clear to Corrine that she would help him because she has no choice, due to her being powerful leverage that Kavanaugh had over Vic. Relationship with Jon Kavanaugh Dutch's relationship with IAD Lt. Jon Kavanaugh was also complicated, especially when he forced Dutch to help him investigate the rape of Kavanaugh's ex-wife. In spite of Kavanaugh using bullying tactics to force Dutch to obey his demands, Dutch did seem willing to help Kavanaugh's investigation of Vic and the Strike Team. It was Dutch who alerted Kavanaugh towards the money train heist and Vic's involvement in the robbery. He personally offered to hand over to Kavanaugh his personal notes, outlining the evidence he uncovered linking the Strike Team with the heist. However, the relationship soured when Dutch learned that Kavanaugh's ex-wife, Sadie, had a history of mental illness. Kavanaugh reacted violently, throwing Dutch against a bathroom wall, when Dutch casually asked why Kavanaugh had refused to share such important information with him. When Dutch ultimately realized that Sadie had faked being raped, Kavanaugh refused to believe him and ordered Dutch to continue to investigate a local sex offender Sadie had identified as her attacker. Though Kavanaugh ultimately was forced to realize Dutch was right, Dutch has yet to follow through with his offer to assist Kavanaugh as a result of his negative experience working with him. Upon beginning his investigation into Lemansky's murder, Dutch was surprised to see Kavanaugh appear in the Barn and seemingly setting up shop again. Upon questioning, he discovered that Kavanaugh was looking into an alternate aspect of Lem's murder, mainly Vic's involvement. During his search for information into the Salvadorians, he looks for Emolia Melendez, Vic and Kavanaugh's former informant. As he nears a possible residence that received a call from Kavanaugh, who informed him that Emolia had sought him out in an attempt to sell him information of Vic's involvement, he gave Dutch a false meeting place, and later gave him the excuse that Emolia changed the meeting place and that he was unable to reach Dutch. After hearing her testimony, Dutch expressed skepticism about the truth into her story and requested highway footage to check the validity of Kavanaugh's story. What he did not know was that Kavanaugh, in an attempt to protect Emolia's credibility, had already requested that Dutch be pulled off of the case, citing that Dutch's relationship with Vic might have resulted in a conflict of interest. Before any change could be made, Dutch investigated the footage given to him by the city of the apparent meeting place, disproving the validity of Emolia's story. Combined with allegations by Corrine Mackey of Kavanaugh's abuse of power, plus the apparent fact that the evidence appeared to be "too perfect", Dutch attempted to question Emolia himself about the validity of her story. Kavanaugh ended the interview, but Claudette instead took Emolia for her own interview, resulting in Kavanaugh confessing to his crime of framing Vic for the murder of Lem. Future at "The Barn" Dutch has often forgone possible promotions to be able to stay partnered with Claudette. He once turned down a chance to replace Monica Rawling as Captain of the Barn because of his loyalty to her, and partly out of the (later validated) belief that his superiors only offered the job to him because they felt that Dutch was spineless and as a result, controllable. He also turned down an offer to transfer to the LAPD "robbery-homicide" division, which Dutch once commented was his dream assignment. He later learned however, that the offer was negotiated by Claudette, who wanted to get rid of Dutch so that he would not have to worry about her—she had long suffered from lupus and had recently experienced a debilitating flare-up. When Claudette fell down a flight of stairs at the Barn and her condition suddenly became public knowledge amongst her superiors in the department, Claudette furiously accused Dutch of being the one who told them. However, it was Billings who had revealed the information instead, and though she later apologized, their relationship would never be the same. Dutch requested a transfer a few days later, partly because of his new assignment with Billings but also because he was no longer with his long term partner. However, his transfer was denied in the wake of Lemansky's murder, with Claudette stating "I need my best detective on this." See Also * Vic and Dutch * Danny and Dutch * Dutch and Claudette Appearances Category:Main characters Category:Season 1 characters Category:Season 2 characters Category:Season 3 characters Category:Season 4 characters Category:Season 5 characters Category:Season 6 characters Category:Season 7 characters Category:Detectives Category:Los Angeles Police Department